Apple tipped to stop support for 32-bit apps in iOS 11

Apple appears to be planning to drop support for 32-bit apps in an upcoming version of iOS.

The alert dialog presented when launching a 32-bit app on iOS 10.3 beta 1 now warns users that the app needs to be updated to continue working on future versions of iOS. This suggests that iOS 11 expected later this year could be the first version to only support 64-bit apps.

Founder of PSPDFKit Peter Steinberger shared a screenshot of this warning dialog box showing up in iOS 10.3 beta version 1 rolled out to developers. The dialog box appears only for 32-bit apps installed on the iPhone.

Now with iOS 11, Apple may finally withdraw support for legacy apps after many fair warnings. The company has been in clean-up mode since last year, and removed nearly 50,000 unwanted and abandoned apps from the App Store.